How Buying the Right TV Will Save $1.34 Billion in Annual Energy Costs

Posted by Alex Katzman on November 01, 2012

In this day and age of technological innovation, you would think that televisions of the same size and type would have a similar power consumption. All TVs are definitely not made equal, in fact it is quite the opposite. LED TVs are usually at least 20 to 25% more efficient than LCDs or Plasmas. Taking 37-inch TVs (average size sold in 2012) as an example, there is a surprising 400% difference in energy usage between the most and least efficient models. And when you consider that approximately 40 million new TVs will be purchased in 2012, there is potential to save 11.2 billion kWh of electricity and $1.34 billion dollars in annual electricity costs by choosing the most efficient model.

Taking a Million Households Off the Grid

Since it's difficult to grasp what 11.2 billion kWh actually means, let's convert that into people. Using the EIA's average consumption benchmark, this translates into 996,454 households worth of energy that could be saved by choosing the more energy efficient 37 inch TV. When you think about it, this would be the same as taking the cities of Boston and San Francisco off the grid. And in terms of reducing CO2 emissions, it would be comparable to removing 1.5 million passenger cars from the road.

This scale and impact of simple purchase decisions, led us to create the Enervee Score which we like to think of as the MPG (miles per gallon) rating for electronics and appliances. And the best part is that by choosing TVs with a higher Enervee Score you can save money and save the planet at the same time without making sacrifices on the latest product features.

How Does Your TV Score?

To help you figure out whether it is the right time to upgrade your TV, we have released a "Score my TV" app that scores the energy efficiency of TVs dating all the way back to the 1990s. You may be surprised to discover that newer Plasmas are actually more efficient than LCDs. Another hidden fact is that there is even a significant variation in energy consumption among the latest Energy Star-certified TVs.

For now, we have only released the Enervee Score for TVs, but we plan to have over 20 product categories scored by the end of the year. Imagine if the example above also included the potential savings for all of the appliances and electronics in the home—the impact to U.S. consumers would be tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars.

Alex Katzman is head of business development at Enervee and has a decade of experience with strategic partnerships and enterprise software implementation in the smart grid and mobile/web sectors. He is well versed in global business, having spent four years of his career working abroad in the UK, Argentina, and South Korea. Alex holds an MBA from the University of Virginia and a Bachelor's degree in Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh.

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